The Polypsychic Garden is an artistic collaboration space open to anyone on Cohost, where one small piece of art is seeded, grown, bloomed, and transformed into myriad unknowable forms by the contributions of those who enter the space. For the next week, you are encouraged to take any piece of art made within the garden, whether the original piece or any modification of that piece or any modifications of those modifications, and add a piece of yourself to it as you see fit. (You're not limited to visual art either.)
Rule Zero: These rules are not remixable and you are expected to abide by them. Rules may be changed after the end of a garden cycle through discussion with participants (especially after this test run), but while the garden is active they are in effect. (You can of course ask about the rules and guidelines if anything is unclear.)
Rule One: Abide by the TOS and COC of Cohost dot org. In addition, don't be a jerk. If you don't like someone, or don't like their art or whatever, don't build off their stuff in a shitty way. Move on and branch off from someone else's piece.
Rule Two: The nature of this collaboration means that everything you contribute to it is fair game to be remixed, rebuilt, changed and altered. As long as a new contribution doesn't break Rule One, it's not only fine but encouraged. If you are uncomfortable with this kind of collaboration, please refrain from contributing.
Rule Three: This is a work done by all of us, not just one person, and every piece is connected to every other piece. Make sure credit is fully given to everyone involved.
Guideline One: Consider only making a new branch no more than once a day. Give yourself time to breathe and the garden time to grow in ways you may not expect.
Guideline Two: You're under no expectation to contribute more than you want to, including contributing nothing. This isn't an art challenge, it's a space for you to collaborate in your own way. The size of the contribution doesn't matter either, do what works for you.
Guideline Three: You are strongly encouraged to explore a piece deeply, and seek to grow it before you branch off of it. We can't tell you what a branch of a piece should mean to you, but we would like you to not simply act randomly.
Guideline Four: With the above guideline in mind, there is no restriction on what you can do with your branch. Add, subtract, warp, go outside the boundary of the image and do something new. If you want to completely remove the image from your branch, and replace it with a poem, prose, nonfic piece, song, code, game, marble sculpture, or video of you on a soapbox yelling at passerby, do it.
Guideline Five: Whatever you make, add it to the collaboration by sharing (in the rehost sense) the post with the piece you're branching off of. Imagine creating another leaf on an evolutionary tree. Please make sure you tag your branch 'polypsychic garden' so it doesn't get lost in the noise.
Guideline Six: Some branches will eventually stagnate, while others will flourish. Remember that even if follower counts are hidden from view, Cohost is still a social media site. Any branches made by more popular users will inevitably be seen more often and thus iterated upon more often. There is no ideal solution to this. If you think that a branch is oversaturated with its own offshoots, we encourage you to consider looking through the polypsychic garden tag and finding something unloved to tend to. And remember that it is always okay to make a new branch from any piece, no matter how new or old, noticed or unnoticed, it is.
Guideline Seven: It's perfectly fine to make 18+ or disturbing art if that's what you feel would make for a meaningful branch. Just make sure to content warn appropriately as you would with any other post.